Ketones

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Organic compounds generated by the liver when fatty acids are metabolized for energy needs
2. Substances synthesized from the breakdown of fats when glucose levels are low, serving as an alternative energy source
3. Compounds in organic chemistry characterized by a carbonyl group attached to two carbon atoms ; chemicals formed in the body during fat breakdown when glucose is insufficient for energy

Etymology: "Ketones" is simply the plural of "ketone", so the history belongs to the singular. The name comes from German "Keton", which was formed from "Aketon", an earlier German form of "acetone". Acetone itself came from French "acétone", and that is where the chain of borrowing begins to make sense: the substances were named after the solvent they resembled, and the family name was built on that resemblance. The surprise is that a word for a biochemical class shares its ancestry with a household solvent. Acetone is a simple, volatile liquid, and chemists in the nineteenth century grouped a range of related compounds under names drawn from it, with the "-one" ending marking the chemical structure. Understood this way, "ketone" is a technical coinage passed along through German and French rather than an old word with a long folk history.

Synonyms: metabolites, compounds, substances, chemicals, bodies